Beneath a foreboding sky streaked with lightning, a figure wanders through a cemetery.  Barefooted and dressed in a monk’s habit, he seems to be missing something.  Quite literally, it may be his head, whose snarling visage is directed out at the viewer from the crook of this gruesome monastic’s left elbow.  But who is this...

Proudly displaying his royal, albeit long-embattled standing, Prince Rupert of the Rhine (1619-1682) placed a crown on his initials in the top right corner of his 1662 mezzotint, Head of the Executioner. Besides his impressive lineage, the Prince is also credited with revolutionizing the mezzotint printing process. Mezzotint is a printing method in which the...